I am Octus
by Unknown by You
Summary: The story version of-so far-one of the best Sym-Bionic Titan episodes having to do with Octus.
1. Paintings And Paris

**Now, for the part where people speak French, I couldn't make out what they actually said, so I used an English-to-French translator and made my own dialogue for that little part. Here are the translations: **

*** Êtes-vous prêt à admettre sa défaite? (Are you ready to concede defeat?)**

*** Vous ne devriez pas me demander. (You should not ask me.)**

*** Vous devez vous poser. (You must ask you.)**

*** Quelque chose ne peut pas être exact. C'est impossible, inconcevable. Absurde. (Something may not be correct.** **It is impossible, inconceivable. Absurd.)**

*** Hé, revenez ici vous deux...oh, oublier. Il est juste une pomme. (Hey, return here you two...oh, forget. It is just an apple.)**

**Art museum in Sherman, Illinois **

The odd trio seemed so out of place as they stood side by side in front of the big canvas that was hanging on the wall that the artist had decided to splatter with various colors: reds, pinks, yellows, whites, grays, and blacks (to name a few).

Ilana was the first to break the silence. "It's like, a beautiful sunrise. The splash of colors makes me feel warm, hopeful," she said.

"I see something…a bit different," said Lance.

"What?" Ilana questioned, eager to know Lance's opinion.

"Pestilence…devastation…endless war," Lance answered, staring at the painting.

"You need to lighten up," Ilana said, as she turned and frowned at Lance. "What do you see?" Ilana asked Octus (who was using his 'Newton' hologram so he could be in public), as she looked up at him.

"Well, there are twenty thousand variations of color," Octus supplied.

"No, what do you see?" Ilana tried again.

"What do you think the painting…represents?" Lance added helpfully.

Octus turned back to the painting. "The red doesn't represent red?" he asked, obviously confused.

"You can't just look with your eyes. You have to look with your heart…uh, your gut…your imagination?" Ilana said, as she watched Octus go from confused, to smiling, to frowning, and to glaring at her as she tried to find the right word for him.

"Go deeper, below the surface," Ilana said, hoping that saying that would help him understand.

Octus stared at the painting, and looked at the individual layers of paint. "Yes…yes, I see it," he said, as he looked at the black paint, then the white paint underneath it, then the gray, and then the red. "I can detect another painting underneath it. So, I guess that this wasn't the artist's first try," he said.

"But what can you tell us about the painting?" Ilana asked, trying to get an answer out of him.

"The canvas is twenty by twenty, and I date it to be approximately 1929," Octus supplied.

"That not what she's talking about," Lance said, with a small glare on his face as he turned toward Octus.

"There's an interesting variation of brushstrokes, but…" Octus said, trailing off as he looked at Lance and Ilana's bored and hopeless expressions.

"What?" he asked.

"You really don't see anything else?" Ilana asked.

"But nothing else is printed. It's just a configuration of lines and color," Octus replied, turning to look back at the painting.

Ilana reached up and put her small hand on his much bigger shoulder. "I guess you can't see it the way we do because…you're a robot," she said, before walking out of the room with Lance trailing along behind her.

"_Robot_?" Octus said out loud to no one in particular as he turned away from the painting to glare after Ilana and Lance.

**Café du Paris in Paris, France**

Two men sat outside the café at a table for two, a chessboard spread between them with a few white and brown chess pieces placed on the board. The man on the left was leaning back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest, with a look of satisfaction and victory on his face as he watched his partner. The other man, who sat on the right, was leaning forward, hunched over the chessboard, in deep concentration as he thought about which piece to move where.

Suddenly, the man on the right straightened, with a look of understanding and excitement on his face. At this, the man on the left said "Êtes-vous prêt à admettre sa défaite?"

"Vous ne devriez pas me demander," the man on the right said, as he switched his white chess piece with his partner's brown chess piece, thus making him the winner of the game. "Vous devez vous poser," he said as he leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and assumed an expression similar to the one his partner had been wearing only moments ago.

The man on the left stared wide-eyed at the chessboard and at the move his partner had just made. "Quelque chose ne peut pas être exact. C'est impossible, inconcevable. Absurde," he shouted as he stood up and waved his arms around while his partner just sat there, completely ignoring the little outburst from his competition.

A little ways down, a shop owner in a white apron was sweeping beside his little table where he was selling an assortment of fruits and vegetables outside his shop. As a young woman wearing a hat with a long red ribbon, a short fancy red dress, a red pocketbook, and red high-heels that laced up her ankles walked by, the shop owner stopped sweeping to watch her pass.

Nearby, a man rode his bicycle on the cobblestone road around a big fountain in the middle of the village's square.

In the same village square, dozens and dozens of doves were pecking at the ground, trying to find some food that might have found its way from the nearby shops to the ground. Some of the white birds took to the air as a young man and woman walked, arm in arm, into the center of the birds and watched them fly around.

Back at the shop owner's little stand, a hand reached up from under the table and took an apple. Two small boys stood up at the end of the table and revealed themselves to be the ones who had taken the apple. They ran off with the apple, laughing as they passed the shop owner. "Hé, revenez ici vous deux...oh, oublier. Il est juste une pomme," he said, as he stopped sweeping only for a moment before continuing on.

Back at the café, the man on the left continued ranting over losing the game of chess, while the man on the right calmly poured himself some tea, still ignoring the other man.

The man on the bike went in another circle around the fountain. The couple in the village square were holding each other and looking in their eyes. The boys who stole the apple continued running, laughing with each other about their luck.

Suddenly, the boys stopped moving. Their legs were in mid-stride, and their mouths in mid-laugh. The shop owner stopped sweeping, the broom poised in mid-air. The two men outside the café had stopped moving too; the one on the left in mid-rant, the one on the right with his hands positioned to pour his tea—which was now over-flowing out of the cup. The bicycler stopped moving as well, but the bike kept moving even though his feet on the pedals didn't. The bike continued in a straight line before crashing and falling over because some bushes had got in its way. The man fell off, his hands still held out to hold the handle-bars, his feet still poised to move the pedals. The couple in the village square was now holding each other closer. They were frozen as well, poised to kiss. All around them, the flying doves fell to the ground like rain.

The only thing that was still moving was the wheel of the man's bicycle.


	2. Frozen In Time

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sym-Bionic Titan. I don't own anything you recognize.**

**Sherman, Illinois **

Octus (still disguising himself with his "Newton" hologram) stared at his reflection in the bus window, vaguely aware of the conversions the other people on the bus were having.

"Newton," Ilana called. She was sitting on his right in the same bus seat as him.

When she got no response, she tried again. "Newton," she said, a little louder this time.

"What?" he asked, some-what annoyed, as his blank expression turned into a glare.

"You've been a million light years away since we left the art institute. Are you okay?" she asked, concerned.

"Sure," he said, still glaring at the window.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Just then, Lance, who was sitting in a seat by himself behind Ilana and Octus, heard the radio.

"Meanwhile, in southern France, a series of strange occurrences—" The radio reporter said, before being cut off as the volume of the other students conversions became louder.

Lance stood up and leaned over the top of Ilana and Octus' seat. "What are they saying?" he asked.

"I can't hear it over all this noise," Ilana answered. They both turned to Octus.

Octus turned toward them and sighed. "_Okay_," he said, still glaring and looking annoyed as he turned back towards the front of the bus. Ilana and Lance watched as black, gray, and white lines appeared and moved up and down "Newton's" glasses lenses' (looking very much like the screen of a TV that couldn't find a satellite signal). A few small sounds like radio static came from Octus as the volume on the bus radio was suddenly turned up—which caused a few students (including Ilana) to cover their ears because it was so loud.

"According to the reports from our Paris viewer, the population of an entire village, both human and animal, has been thrust into what experts are theorizing as a kind of profound hypnotic state," the radio reporter said as the lines faded from "Newton's" glasses and the three exchanged worried glances.

"French military has quarantined the entire area and—" the radio reporter continued as the bus driver began fiddling with the volume dial, and was cut off as the bus driver got impatient and banged his fist down on the machine.

Octus tried to get it back on again to hear more information on the subject, but gave up shortly after.

"Mutraddi?" Ilana asked.

"Only one way to know for sure," Lance said as the bus pulled to a stop and everyone except the trio exited the bus.

"We can't go. If this phenomenon is affecting humans, there is every chance it will affect us too," Octus stated.

"It might affect us, but not you," Lance replied.

"Oh, sure. Send the _robot_," Octus said, glaring. He stood up. "I'll call you when I get there," he said as he left.

"What was that all about?" Lance asked as he watched Octus leave.

"I don't know," Ilana answered.

**Alternating between Sherman, Illinois (where Lance and Ilana are at home) and Paris, France (where Octus is)**

Octus (in his normal bio-cybernetic form) was flying over mountains and forests in the dark of the night.

"Are you there? What do you see_?_" Octus heard Ilana's voice from his transmitter.

"A beautiful sunrise. The colors make me feel warm, hopeful," Octus replied sarcastically.

Ilana was sitting in a swivel chair while Lance was standing up and leaning on the back of the chair. Both were staring at a big, blue orb (probably made of the same material as Octus) that was sunk half-way into the wall and acted as a camera that let them see what Octus was seeing and also as a transmitter that let them hear what Octus was saying and vice versa.

At Octus' remark, they exchanged glances. "You want to run that by us again, minus the sarcasm," Lance said.

"My _robot_ scanner isn't detecting anything. I guess it's beyond my _robot_ capacity to…" Octus said, trailing off.

Octus stopped flying and landed in a clearing in the forest. As he started walking, he began looking around, his yellow circular light swinging around, acting as a flashlight and indicating his line of sight. It washed over men in military outfits, seemingly frozen in time. Some were holding guns, while others were giving orders, while others still were unloading trucks and signaling to the still-loaded trunks where to park, their hands frozen in various gestures.

"Are you guys seeing this?" Octus asked.

"Yeah," Lance answered, leaning down closer to Ilana while both of them stared at the orb in front of them.

"What could have done that?" Ilana asked.

"Octus, run an analysis of the air and water," Lance said.

"Already have. No evidence of toxins or biological agents of any kind. I'm not sure what's happening," Octus replied.

Octus walked a little farther. "Um, the G3 guys are here also," he said, as he spotted the group of people wearing the familiar red jumpsuits, red helmets, and white scarves that flapped and blew around in the soundless wind.

"What are they doing?"Lance asked over the transmitter.

"Nothing," Octus answered as he stared at the men, who were frozen in time as well. Some were holding guns, exiting their plane, or setting up strange equipment.

Lance and Ilana shared confused glances at Octus' reply before turning back to the orb.

"I'm entering the village now," Octus said through the transmitter.

As he walked on the cobblestone road of the village square, his light washed over the dozens of doves on the ground. His light then lit up two sets of feet, and as he moved closer, the light traveled up the bodies until Octus could see the people' faces. The people, he realized, were probably a young couple, because they had been about to kiss each other right before they were frozen in time. Walking a little farther, Octus discovered the shop owner, who was frozen in mid-sweep, with his apron flapping around from the wind that was creating small clouds of dust at his feet. Octus walked past him and spotted the two little boys that had stolen the apple from the shop owner. He walked past them too, and came to the café. He saw the man on the left of the table for two, still in mid-shout, his hand raised with a white chess piece still in his grip. As he turned to look at the man on the right of the table, his light cast weird shadows behind the chess pieces sitting on the chessboard. The man on the right was poised to pour himself some tea, the teapot having emptied itself long ago from being in that position for so long. Octus walked passed them as well, and came across the man with the bicycle, the bike's wheel no longer spinning, the man himself still lying on his back from falling off the said method of transportation, still position to ride the bike. Octus turned around, and saw the rest of Paris lit up, the Eifel Tower looming proudly in the middle of the frozen city. Octus stared out at the people frozen in their activities for the day, unaware that it was now night.

"All of Paris is affected," Octus said through the transmitter to Lance and Ilana.

"If this phenomenon keeps spreading at this rate, it'll…" Octus said, trailing off.

Octus gasped. "Hello?…Lance?…Ilana?…" he asked.

Nothing. No reply. Not a sound.

In the blink of an eye, Octus had immediately powered up and was speed-flying back to Sherman, Illinois to Lance and Ilana.


End file.
